The House Ways and Means Committee passed the Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act in a bipartisan 38-5 vote on Wednesday, September 16, 2026, moving legislation that would rework how federal tax rules apply to stablecoins, mining and staking income, crypto lending and digital asset transactions, Cointelegraph reported.
The committee’s approval sends the bill to the full House of Representatives, though no floor date has been set. The vote landed a day after the Senate failed to advance the broader CLARITY Act market structure bill on a 49-50 cloture motion, short of the 60 votes needed to open debate. That failure left the tax package as the main piece of crypto legislation actively moving through Congress.
Also read: CLARITY Act failure could push US crypto rules to 2027 or beyond — here's what's at stake
Key facts
- The Digital Asset Tax Certainty Act advanced out of Ways and Means on a 38-5 bipartisan vote.
- The bill would give special tax treatment to qualifying dollar-pegged stablecoins and certain crypto lending agreements, and extend wash-sale rules to widely traded digital assets.
- It creates a de minimis exemption so taxpayers avoid recognizing gains or losses when digital assets are used to pay qualifying network or transaction fees of $10 or less.
- The Senate’s CLARITY Act cloture motion failed 49-50 on Tuesday, falling short of the 60 votes required.
- The Bitcoin Reserve Act, also called the American Reserve Modernization Act (H.R. 8957), is scheduled for a House Financial Services Committee markup at 10:00 a.m. ET on Wednesday, September 16, according to Coinpedia.
The tax bill’s provisions also cover new rules for mining and staking income, a long-running sticking point for taxpayers who receive tokens as block rewards.
Stablecoins, fees and the wash-sale change
The bill’s stablecoin language would create special treatment for tokens that qualify as dollar-pegged, while lending agreements would get their own rules rather than falling under general income recognition. The $10 de minimis threshold on network and transaction fees is narrower than some industry participants had sought, and the package dropped earlier proposals to defer tax on mining and staking rewards, per prior Cointelegraph coverage.
Also read: Three Democratic senators oppose CLARITY Act on ethics grounds as Senate vote nears
Extending wash-sale rules to widely traded digital assets would end a long-standing mismatch: under existing law, those rules apply to stocks and securities but not to crypto, which had allowed traders to sell at a loss and repurchase almost immediately.
Regulators signal they will act without Congress
Senator Cynthia Lummis, who chairs the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Digital Assets and co-sponsored the CLARITY Act, blamed Democrats for its failure. In a post on X, she said that for more than a year Democrats had presented demands, and that once those demands were met they added new ones and moved the goal posts. She also said Democrats voted against proposed consumer protections and restrictions on politicians’ personal crypto investments.
SEC Chair Paul Atkins responded the same day, writing on X that the agency would act within its statutory authority regardless of whether legislation passes, and telling readers to stay tuned. CFTC Chair Michael Selig likewise said the derivatives regulator would proceed under its existing authority, describing the agency as ready to ship rules for what he called the new frontier of finance and saying Americans deserve regulatory clarity, legal certainty and consumer protections in crypto asset markets.
Why it matters
Tax treatment has been one of the most concrete unresolved problems for US crypto users, and the Ways and Means vote gives the industry its first committee-level win on the issue. Stablecoin issuers, lenders, miners, stakers and ordinary traders would all be affected if the bill becomes law. The contrast with the Senate is sharp: the market structure framework stalled, while the tax package advanced with support from both parties. Coinpedia reported that the reserve bill is bipartisan too, introduced by Republican Rep. Nick Begich and Democratic co-sponsor Rep. Jared Golden in late May, with a 20-year lockup on government Bitcoin and a ban on buying Bitcoin with new taxes, debt or deficit spending.
What to watch
The full House is the next stop for the tax bill, and the Senate remains a separate hurdle. Also Wednesday, the House Financial Services Committee is scheduled to consider the American Reserve Modernization Act at 10:00 a.m. ET, with Coinpedia noting that passage there would send it to the House floor, then the Senate, then the President. Any further SEC or CFTC rulemaking announcements will signal how far regulators are willing to go without the CLARITY Act.
Nothing here is financial advice, and crypto markets are volatile and uncertain.
Reported by cointelegraph.com.
